Didier does raise an interesting point though... FL Studio was written
in Delphi, which started out with a forms-based programming model - one
which favored a tight integration between data and its representation.
Network-transparent systems are nice, but in an industry with rather
limited development resources, I wonder if the extra complexity is
really a win. IMHO, it will rule out the development or porting of some
big and significant plug-ins to GMPI.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like there are two classes
of plug-ins:-
A) A plug-in whose state can easily be represented by a set of
parameters, and whose user interface could reasonably be designed with
markup.
In other words, the type of plug-in for which you could build everything
besides the DSP code core with some snap-together plug-in kit
(Synthedit, Reaktor, etc.).
(Jeff - yes, I know you can import custom code DLLs in to Synthedit).
This is probably 90% of the plugs currently on the market. GMPI seems to
be a good fit for this.. my guess is, we can provide a good user
experience without most developers ever having to touch UI code.
B) Plug-ins for which the above is not true. Probably they'd be better
off running as apps via JACK (or something of the sort); this could be
augmented by adding persistency support, and direct support for some
RFB-based protocol for transporting the GUI across a network. (yes, I
know RFB protocols suck for efficiency. But the reality is, development
resources are not infinite, and I'd rather be able to run Kontakt or FL
Studio well on the desktop and sluggishly over a net, than not have it
available at all because it'd be too damn expensive to develop).
Paul Davis wrote:
plugins can already put their UI in another process if they want, they don't need the host to help them communicate with themselves
users can't put the DSP part of a plugin on another CPU if the GUI
expects to run there as well. you might not want to do that, but those
of us who
a) build embedded headless systems (think Receptor/Plugzilla) b) use network-transparent GUI systems
already do this, and would like to not have to work so hard to get it in the future.
--p
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Generalized Music Plugin Interface (GMPI) public discussion list Participation in this list is contingent upon your abiding by the following rules: Please stay on topic. You are responsible for your own words. Please respect your fellow subscribers. Please do not redistribute anyone else's words without their permission.
Archive: //www.freelists.org/archives/gmpi Email gmpi-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx w/ subject "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Generalized Music Plugin Interface (GMPI) public discussion list Participation in this list is contingent upon your abiding by the following rules: Please stay on topic. You are responsible for your own words. Please respect your fellow subscribers. Please do not redistribute anyone else's words without their permission.
Archive: //www.freelists.org/archives/gmpi Email gmpi-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx w/ subject "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe
